Having appeared to confirm no 'actual' American emails were intercepted in previous statements, it seems President Obama has some more questions to answer after the Guardian reveals that in fact, the Obama administration permitted the National Security Agency to continue collecting vast amounts of records detailing the email and Internet usage of Americans for more than two years. “The internet metadata of the sort NSA collected for at least a decade details the accounts to which Americans sent emails and from which they received emails,” the Guardian's Greenwald wrote. “It also details the Internet protocol addresses (IP) used by people inside the United States when sending emails – information which can reflect their physical location. It did not include the content of emails." Is it any wonder that Obama said he was "concerned" about firther leaks today.

The Obama administration permitted the National Security Agency to continue collecting vast amounts of records detailing the email and Internet usage of Americans for more than two years, new documents reveal.

According to leaked NSA documents published by The Guardian on Thursday, a secretive surveillance program that put email and Internet metadata into the hands of the United States government was authorized after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks by President George W. Bush and continued under President Barack Obama through 2011.

The leaked evidence comes three weeks to the day after The Guardian first began publishing classified NSA documents attributed to Edward Snowden, a 30-year-old former intelligence analyst from the US who is now wanted there for espionage. He is reportedly in Moscow and has sought asylum from at least two foreign countries.

...

One of the two papers published this week, a 2009 working draft from the NSA’s Office of the Inspector General, explains how the agency initiated the "collection of bulk internet metadata" involving "communications with at least one communicant outside the United States or for which no communicant was known to be a citizen of the United States.” That document is marked as “top secret.”

...

“The internet metadata of the sort NSA collected for at least a decade details the accounts to which Americans sent emails and from which they received emails,” the journalists wrote. “It also details the Internet protocol addresses (IP) used by people inside the United States when sending emails – information which can reflect their physical location. It did not include the content of emails.”

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Just heard this, Ecuador to accept Snowden and sends jab at US over our threat to cut off some trade relations:

"Ecuador gives up, unilaterally and irrevocably the said customs benefits…What’s more, Ecuador offers the United States economic aid of $23 million annually, similar to what we received with the trade benefits, with the intention of providing education about human rights…”

The situation is this : Let say we have a fictional 18 yo in college. Let's call him Garry. He is super bright. He has a friend who is called Carl. Garry and Carl are good friends and exchanges email, phone call frequently.

Forward 20 years, Garry is now running for president of the USA. He is about to win, and a spook taps him on the shoulder on day and says "We owe you. If you don't do what we want, all your email from 20 years ago will be made public. Your friend Carl is gay. and we think you're too."

So Garry is now a president and an NSA spook. He is going to start wars after wars after wars wherever they like. end of story.

There are two other lesser known NSA whistle blowers that are key to understanding this developing story.

William Binney reveals the how the NSA is capturing and storing almost all domestic electronic communications using Narus devices at key locations on the backbone of the internet (Room 641A & AT&T Leaks). This whole metadata meme is a blatant lie!

This is the bread and butter that journalists should be talking about along with the NSA having direct server access to the largest software companies and the constant lies coming from the government...not where's waldo.

KEY POINT: Politicians are blackmailed and controlled by the military industrial complex. Democracy is an illusion, this is what Eisenhower warned us about!

I share the same concerns about Julian Assange, Wikileaks, AJ and Israel but I do not want that to distract from the current story on the NSA/GOV in any way. If TPTB see a weakness or a divisional tear you can be sure they will exploit it. So far the attempts at character assassination and turning this into a partisan issue are utterly failing and I would like their attempts to continue to fail.

Well ~ I'd say Barry [I mean 'Garry'] deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for his dedication to the cause of humanity... But the question remains... Is he still on the hook for Peggy Josephs gas & mortgage?...

For domestic emails from non-terrorists they wouldn't bother with the entire contents of email as such. Just a digest of key words would do. If they find an interesting key word then they put you on some kind of "person of interest" watch list for a while, and a string of such observations puts you into a special "take everything" list. At least that is what everyone in the IT community is assuming.

A good estimate would be that 10 in 1000 US citizens who send domestic email have been deep-snooped simply due to corresponding about interesting topics. I'm guessing 1 in 1000 are being actively and continuously monitored and entire emails saved, on no more basis than frequently writing about interesting topics.

If you are a US citizen residing in the US and any of your emails went to a foreign country -- incl Canada and Mexico -- they probably keep all your emails to and from anywhere for up to 10 years.

The above measures would be considered minimally invasive and easily defensible in court under provisions of the Patriot Act etc. I have zero doubt at all that they are already doing this.

Lets say we have a multinational criminal entity called SPECTRE, that runs a security force called the SS, that 'guards' all the significant and transitorilly important politicians. Bill Hicks: The Elite (Roll the film).

Or Carl eventually married a fifth cousin of the Bin Laden clan, so now Garry will be hit with this right before election day and, due to his close relationship with a known terrorist, instead of the white house, he will report directly to Camp 4. Or he will become president/spook as you say.

my avatar kicks ass....one of the few to stand up to the empire who left south america in shambles for so many decades............u.s. extracting, manipulating, extorting, pillaging, meddling, etc......all finally coming to an end in south america......and correa has alot to do with it...........................

As I mentioned, both the BBC and Graundian (See years of Private Eye for spelling explanation) were very much in the Obama camp. VERY MUCH in the Obama Camp. TOTAL

In fact the Grundian is so invovled with US politics, it started a letter writting campaing from Britain...asksing British people during the 2004 election, to write to their American cousins, and tell them why they should vote for whomever.

So I am a bit baffled as to why they have seemingly turned on Obama. Their chosen one. It does make me wonder if there is another motive for these releases. Will it all lead back to the GOP and the Bush years? Is there some joker card they will play?

LOTS of government whistle blowers have spoken out about illiegal practice by the US Government, from Area 51 workers poisoned by open burning of toxic waste to the word being out on the NSA and their snooping DECADES AGO!!!......yet they were always "conspiracy theory"......yet the MSM, and you HAVE to include the BBC in the MSM bracket, have put Snowden on a throne and called him the one true Christ............why? and why now?

I think we can agree that the existing laws have been minimized and reinterpreted to ineffective shadows of what our founders sought...

The most overlooked part of the whole mess is that WE, the people, are the government. At this point, I'm sure there's even a contingency plan if we were actually able to vote the whole lot of criminals out of OUR government. I'm pretty sure any FOIA requests to verify that would get circle filed, as well...

I don't think immunity is the sole solution since people can be compromised even with knowledge of immunity. J Edgar Hoover survived 8 administrations by keeping secret files. Whomever is in charge of surveillance would have to excercise incredible self-discipline not to do the same. If not now, clearlly someone in the future. Even if they don't, the fear that they can must have an enormous influence on politicians and others. I'm not smart enough to know what the soluition is.

You turn up in the morning working for His Highness' NSA as a young pup, straight out of high school, and the first thing your boss says is 'Spy on those unwitting Americans over there son, although its against the law son, and against them folks' constitutional rights, just sit there son and read it all, then report back to me son with any funny behaviour and we'll put them people on a coloured list as potential terrists'.

You couldnt make this shit up, although I did make that up just there.

And people wonder why the Western World is beyond fucked? This is a parody of virtue at this point, its pure fucking un-adulterated evil.

The "fucked" part about it isn't that it gets done... that's kind of a basic acknowledgement of human behavior... we accept orders and are desperate for power and notoriety... that's a given. What's fucked is that: (a) snowden did all this shit for a long time before coming clean; and (b) for every snowden, there are 1,000,000 others who never disclose their activities nor seem to have much of a problem with it.

Do you think they get kids to do this stuff for no reason? Easily manipulated, controlled and bullied, if necessary. Snowden just happened to wake up from it before his 30th birthday. Faster than most, I would say. And, of course, many never wake up.

Took me 'til I was damn near 40 to fully awaken and shake off all of the indoctrination. Hardly any of 'friends' even talk to me any more, except for the ones who are awake or are at least sheep-walking.

Faal's highpoint was writing headlines for the late Weekly World News where he specialized in four headed alien babies with gonads the size of watermellons. How could you link this crap to inquiring ZH readers except under Thirsday humor?

Can’t track one of its own, a man who came to work every day, a man who made up a story about needing treatment in Hong Kong for epilepsy and then skipped the country.

Just can’t find him.

Can’t find him in Hong Kong, where he does a sit-down video interview with Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian. Can’t find that “safe house” or that “hotel” where he’s staying.

No. Can’t find him or spy on his communications while he’s in Hong Kong. Can’t figure out he’s booked a flight to Russia. Can’t intercept him at the airport before he leaves for Russia . Too difficult."

Of course they knew exactly where he was in Hong Kong and that he was leaving on a commercial Russian passenger jet. Apparently they did not want to send in a hit team with the eyes of the world watching which could very well be gunned down by the Chinese or Russian elite military. Your comment is sort of ridiculous. I guess the idea of a CIA/NSA/Mossad hit against Snowden never occurred to Chinese and Russian intelligence.

As to Snowden being an NSA hang out operation. I think not. The damage to the USA bullshit mill is just too great. Are they really that stupid? One might argue that savvy people around the world already knew everything he released. Yeah. True. Maybe. But now your typical Arkansas pig farmer knows it, and that makes a big difference. He now knows that it ain't just those Aye-Rabs that the gobmint is after. They are spying on his swine as well.

As to Webster Tarpley's analysis. You know who Webster's biggest hero is? Yeah - the gold grabber - FDR. I am never sure just who Webster is working for, not that I pay him a lot of attention anymore. He is very insulting to animals, particularly hyenas and jackals. Next he will start to badmouth us turkey buzzards. :-)

> As to Snowden being an NSA hang out operation. I think not. The damage to the USA bullshit mill is just too great.

The damage to the US political bullshit mill is major. But the NSA and the powers behind it are still intact and will keep on spying on us. What's the use of having a huge spynest unless the herd knows that they're being spied on?

Snowden is designed to marginalize the political machine in DC. They now have no cred on the world stage, Congress and the Executive Branch are scared to death of the NSA and won't do a thing to change the status quo.

Take Microsoft software as an important example. As part of the NSA unravelings, it was uncovered that Microsoft gives security holes to the National Security Agency for exploiting before it sends out security repair patches to its users and customers - essentially betraying the trust of every customer worldwide, and making sure that no government, corporation, or media outlet can ever trust Microsoft products again: for Microsoft gave the master key to every customers' operations to the NSA.

Without Snowden setting the ball rolling, we would not have known this, and we would continue to have been owned - in the hacker and literal sense of the word - by the United States. Now, we can at least see that any Microsoft-developed software, and probably any closed US-developed software, is a huge security risk that no nation outside the United States can afford to take.

I agree with all that. And anybody who has ever trusted Microsoft is a being fooled.

I posted on ZH several days ago that I have irrefutable evidence that Microsoft's latest version of its IE Browser has spyware in it, far woese than simply 'calling home' with innocuous data. No ifs and buts.

Hey they were consuming mass quantifies under Clinton(D) too - no surprise that they would be doing so under Obama(D) as well. It was called Carnivore back then, but I guess Prism sounds less hostile. Anyhow the current events are no shock, the shocker is all the rip-van-winkle privacy advocates coming out the woodwork now. Amusing and sad.

well that's just great, that just makes it all double good a ok dandy.

I am just so relieved...but wait.

WGA records keystrokes downloads them into a folder then uploads that info twice a day, everyday.

uploads to where I wonder?

so the content is not included yet every keystroke you type is...

face it, the NSA has everything account numbers, passwords, search requests , transaction info, emails, website visits, that subscription to teen farm you thought was private, they have it all, every last character imputed from every device you own. every last word you've spoken on every phone you've ever spoken on.

still despite the complete and utter destruction of any semblance of privacy, the sheeple still insist that it all good as long as you have nothing to hide...

EVEN WHEN TRULY CAST IN THE ETERNAL CIRCUMSTANCE OF A SHIPWRECK’S DEPTH

Can be

only

the Abyssraging whitened stalled beneath the desperately sloping incline of its own wing through an advance falling back from ill to take flight and veiling the gushers restraining the surges

gathered far within the shadow buried deep by that alternative sail

almost matching its yawning depth to the wingspan like a hull

of a vessel rocked from side to side

THE MASTER beyond former calculations where the lost manoeuvre with the age rose implying that formerly he grasped the helm of this conflagration of the concerted horizon at his feet

that readies itself moves and merges with the blow that grips it as one threatens fate and the winds

the unique Number which cannot be another Spirit to hurl it into the storm relinquish the cleaving there and pass proudly hesitates a corpse pushed back by the arm from the secretrather than taking sides a hoary madman on behalf of the waves one overwhelms the head flows through the submissive beard straight shipwreck that of the man without a vessel empty no matter where

ancestrally never to open the fist clenched beyond the helpless head a legacy in vanishing to someone ambiguous the immemorial ulterior demonhaving from non-existent regions ledthe old man towards this ultimate meeting with probability this his childlike shadecaressed and smoothed and rendered supple by the wave and shielded from hard bone lost between the planks born of a frolicthe sea through the old man or the old man against the sea making a vain attempt an Engagementwhose dread the veil of illusion rejected as the phantom of a gesture will tremble collapse madness WILL NEVER ABOLISH

AS IF

A simple insinuation

into silence entwined with irony or the mystery hurled howled

in some close swirl of mirth and terror

whirls round the abyss without scattering or dispersing

and cradles the virgin index there

AS IF

a solitary plume overwhelmed

untouched that a cap of midnight grazes or encounters and fixes in crumpled velvet with a sombre burst of laughter

that rigid whiteness

derisory in opposition to the heavens too much so not to signal closely any

bitter prince of the reef

heroically adorned with it indomitable but contained by his petty reason virile

in lightning

anxious expiatory and pubescent dumb laughter

that IF

The lucid and lordly crest of vertigo on the invisible brow sparkles then shades a slim dark tallness upright in its siren coiling at the moment of striking through impatient ultimate scales bifurcated

a rock

a deceptive manor suddenly evaporating in fog

that imposed limits on the infinite

IT WAS THE NUMBER stellar outcome WERE IT TO HAVE EXISTED other than as a fragmented agonised hallucination

WERE IT TO HAVE BEGUN AND ENDED a surging that denied and closed when visible at last by some profusion spreading in sparseness WERE IT TO HAVE AMOUNTED

to the fact of the total though as little as one

WERE IT TO HAVE LIGHTED

IT WOULD BE worse no more nor less indifferently but as much CHANCE

Falls the plume rhythmic suspense of the disaster to bury itself in the original foam from which its delirium formerly leapt to the summit faded by the same neutrality of abyss

NOTHING

of the memorable crisis where the event matured accomplished in sight of all non-existent human outcomes

WILL HAVE TAKEN PLACE a commonplace elevation pours out absence

BUT THE PLACE some lapping below as if to scatter the empty act abruptly that otherwise by its falsity would have plumbed perdition

in this region of vagueness in which all reality dissolves

EXCEPT at the altitude PERHAPS as far as a place fuses with beyond outside the interest signalled regarding it in general in accord with such obliquity through such declination of fire towards what must be the Wain also North A CONSTELLATION cold with neglect and desuetude not so much though that it fails to enumerate on some vacant and superior surface the consecutive clash sidereally of a final account in formation attending doubting rolling shining and meditating before stopping at some last point that crowns it

A THROW OF THE DICE NEVER, EVEN WHEN TRULY CAST IN THE ETERNAL CIRCUMSTANCE OF A SHIPWRECK’S DEPTH, Can be only the Abyss raging, whitened, stalled beneath the desperately sloping incline of its own wing, through an advance falling back from ill to take flight, and veiling the gushers, restraining the surges, gathered far within the shadow buried deep by that alternative sail, almost matching its yawning depth to the wingspan, like a hull of a vessel rocked from side to side

THE MASTER, beyond former calculations, where the lost manoeuvre with the age rose implying that formerly he grasped the helm of this conflagration of the concerted horizon at his feet, that readies itself; moves; and merges with the blow that grips it, as one threatens fate and the winds, the unique Number, which cannot be another Spirit, to hurl it into the storm, relinquish the cleaving there, and pass proudly; hesitates, a corpse pushed back by the arm from the secret, rather than taking sides, a hoary madman, on behalf of the waves: one overwhelms the head, flows through the submissive beard, straight shipwreck that, of the man without a vessel, empty no matter where

ancestrally never to open the fist clenched beyond the helpless head, a legacy, in vanishing, to someone ambiguous, the immemorial ulterior demon having, from non-existent regions, led the old man towards this ultimate meeting with probability, this his childlike shade caressed and smoothed and rendered supple by the wave, and shielded from hard bone lost between the planks born of a frolic, the sea through the old man or the old man against the sea, making a vain attempt, an Engagement whose dread the veil of illusion rejected, as the phantom of a gesture will tremble, collapse, madness, WILL NEVER ABOLISH

AS IF A simple insinuation into silence, entwined with irony, or the mystery hurled, howled, in some close swirl of mirth and terror, whirls round the abyss without scattering or dispersing and cradles the virgin index there AS IF

a solitary plume overwhelmed, untouched, that a cap of midnight grazes, or encounters, and fixes, in crumpled velvet with a sombre burst of laughter, that rigid whiteness, derisory, in opposition to the heavens, too much so not to signal closely any bitter prince of the reef, heroically adorned with it, indomitable, but contained by his petty reason, virile in lightning

anxious expiatory and pubescent dumb laughter that IF the lucid and lordly crest of vertigo on the invisible brow sparkles, then shades, a slim dark tallness, upright in its siren coiling, at the moment of striking, through impatient ultimate scales, bifurcated, a rock a deceptive manor suddenly evaporating in fog that imposed limits on the infinite

IT WAS THE NUMBER, stellar outcome, WERE IT TO HAVE EXISTED other than as a fragmented, agonised hallucination; WERE IT TO HAVE BEGUN AND ENDED, a surging that denied, and closed, when visible at last, by some profusion spreading in sparseness; WERE IT TO HAVE AMOUNTED to the fact of the total, though as little as one; WERE IT TO HAVE LIGHTED, IT WOULD BE, worse no more nor less indifferently but as much, CHANCE Falls the plume, rhythmic suspense of the disaster, to bury itself in the original foam, from which its delirium formerly leapt to the summit faded by the same neutrality of abyss

NOTHING of the memorable crisis where the event matured, accomplished in sight of all non-existent human outcomes, WILL HAVE TAKEN PLACE a commonplace elevation pours out absence BUT THE PLACE some lapping below, as if to scatter the empty act abruptly, that otherwise by its falsity would have plumbed perdition, in this region of vagueness, in which all reality dissolves

EXCEPT at the altitude PERHAPS, as far as a place fuses with, beyond, outside the interest signalled regarding it, in general, in accord with such obliquity, through such declination of fire, towards what must be the Wain also North A CONSTELLATION cold with neglect and desuetude, not so much though that it fails to enumerate, on some vacant and superior surface, the consecutive clash, sidereally, of a final account in formation, attending, doubting, rolling, shining and meditating before stopping at some last point that crowns it All Thought expresses a Throw of the Dice

It'sStéphane Mallarmé, Kline is the translator, but there we go. There's even a video. A book on the subject: The Number and the Siren: a Decipherment of Mallarme's Coup De Des (AMZN)

It has been suggested that much of Mallarmé's work influenced the conception of hypertext, with his purposeful use of blank space and careful placement of words on the page, allowing multiple non-linear readings of the text. This becomes very apparent in his work Un coup de dés.

Few people get how radical Mr Julian Assange was being about "scientific journalism", and even fewer have taken up the challenge (the lame, crippled, incestuous usage by the online versions of the MSM counts not, and fails at all levels of purpose: too craven and slow to even link to public science papers, how base and pitiful they are). One does a little bit towards it, by enmeshing YouTube with commentary to formulate larger aggregates. (hint ~ a perfect YouTube would contain all media of note, cut into perfect blocks for mimetic usage. Trust me, it would spark all kinds of fun, it's sad you're on the cusp, and yet destroying it).

I get the impression Snowden, like Assange is just another leftist blowhard empty suit.

If Snowden were a patriot he'd release tapes of our traitor Senate negotiating the assumption of foreign Socialist bank liabilities for campaign donations, or the legalization of foreign criminal invasion of our own country for campaign donations or the invasion of Libya, Syria, Mali for campaign donations.

C'mon Snowden give us some raw meat, something we can use to string up a few Senators like Mussolini.

Talk is cheap.

As far as I can tell Snowden didn't tell us anything we didn't already know. "they're listening and recording everything"

For the third, and last time, Snowden is allowed to run and dance and jingle because he explicitly stated he didn't download anything that could damage individuals.

Operational stuff is fine, it allows the rest of the world to tell America (and its home grown muppets) to grow the fuck up and join the mature discussion over intel ('MURICA!), it allows the large tech players to squirm out of State control (apart from FaceBook - they're fucked, way too close to the NSA there Zucker, the others ain't gonna trust you now; although sharp and pointy teethed players should have noted that Yahoo! protested a little too hard, then got a nice, sharkey, red dressed CEO, hint hint, if you want to play the Big Game and get an inkling of the real moves going on) and it allows all the players to get on with the next big Game. No-one (apart from the stupid cunts) is shocked by any of this, it's all about positioning for the Big Game Break.

How many Booz Allens are there. It's one thing to have the "government" running a program. So what exactly is the need/funtion of Booz and the like. How does the NSA control access and what these I/Cs do with the "data". My premis is they do any fucking thing they want to do with it... legal or illegal.. hence a snowden can wreak havoc. if he were really smart he would have handed the info to Julian and let him wikileak it. and not reaveal his identity... can you imaging the chaos.

why did snowden selfsacrifice??????? And how do we know he didnt make a "trapdoor" for future access?????? how many snowdens are there we dont know about yet??????? how many other ultrasecret "anti terror" programs we dont know about..????? How many "data rendering" facilities and sub contractors are there around the world?????

What makes us think the russkies and chinks and israel and the brits and every other country and hacker and private mercenary secret buyer/seller in the world isnt doing what snowden did. of course they are ... they did it to the pentagon, the state department, rand corp..... the power gird.... then banks and wall street. need i say bloomberg..... what about the fed???

what about the punks who sell cc and ss info. ???? what is the irs selling????